The Health Ministry will roll out a social health insurance scheme for the bottom 40 per cent (B40) next January, says Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad today.
He said the scheme was expected to be included in the 2019 Budget, which would be tabled in Parliament next month.
“As part of Pakatan Harapan’s 14th General Election manifesto, we want to introduce this social health insurance scheme to benefit those in the B40 group before eventually expanding it to all Malaysians,” he said after the ministry’s monthly assembly and launching the ‘Dentistry Going Digital: Connecting the Community’ mobile application.
“This will be the seed for a comprehensive social health insurance package, which will be introduced for all Malaysians one day.”
He said the ministry was in the final stages of fine tuning the B40 health insurance scheme with the Finance Ministry and Bank Negara.
“The scheme will be tabled in Parliament during the Budget presentation,” he said, adding that it was different from the 1Care 1Malaysia Insurance programme, introduced by the previous government, which was put on hold after stakeholders voiced their concerns.
He said it was set to be a game changer in the healthcare industry and would provide more than just basic treatment.
Deputy Health Minister Dr Lee Boon Chye had been quoted as saying that the government could provide insurance protection of between RM10,000 and RM20,000 for per family per year hospital bills under the proposed scheme.
However, medical practitioners and the public had expressed doubts about its workability.
On a separate matter, Dzulkefly said the Penang Health Department had been tasked with investigating complaints that specialist doctors had been communicating with housemen in Mandarin, making it difficult for others to understand.
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